3. The Tutorial
"Well, one thing's certain now. I'm in the supporter position."
"Helping others is a good thing."
It seemed the Guardians — the protagonists of this game — knew absolutely nothing about this city.
And for some reason, the information and rewards meant for the protagonists kept getting misrouted to me instead.
Which meant, in all likelihood, I held a fairly important position in this game after all.
"...So what good does that do me?"
No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't see any benefit to playing the supporter.
Things were comfortable enough as they were. Why go looking for trouble when I already had an easy life?
Granted, getting closer to the main storyline wasn't unwelcome — but then again, this was a game I knew nothing about.
"Hmm. No, actually — if I want to rest easy, helping them might be the right call."
Thinking it through, the Guardians occupied the position of firefighters.
An emergency-response squad dispatched to stamp out the problems scattered across every corner of the city.
Information-wise, I probably had the edge.
But my body was too frail to actually solve anything myself.
So what happens when my information combines with the protagonists' muscle?
"Wouldn't Limadimensio just get that much more peaceful?"
Limadimensio was a peaceful city, relatively speaking.
But it had plenty of hidden problems, like that clash between the Celestials and the demons just recently.
Every so often, on my trips out to buy groceries, I'd be startled half to death by the grinding of gears, the cold ring of a blade being drawn, or screams and shouting from somewhere down the street.
I was one of the city's movers and shakers, so I got by all right — but still, there's always that little voice whispering what if.
And if the Guardians swept all those problems away for good?
"...That doesn't sound half bad."
Besides, now that the story had begun, Limadimensio was as good as exposed to every danger imaginable.
I had no idea what kind of threat would come knocking, but getting on the Guardians' good side would surely help me survive when it did.
"In that case, maybe I should be farming affection points after all."
On top of the usual rewards, a few little extras might be in order.
Games like this lived and died on the little extras — that alone was enough to make players happy.
No need to spend lavishly, either. Just enough to make a good impression, and that would do nicely.
"I should draw up a plan, then."
I sat down at my typewriter.
Parchment and quill had their charm, but I had a lot to write down today.
Given that a quill would snap and the parchment would tear at the volume I had in mind, the typewriter was simply the more economical choice.
"First things first: the Guardians need to get stronger. And not just stronger — as strong as possible, as fast as possible, right up to the limit."
That way, whatever came their way, they could resolve it in a hurry.
Games like this usually had a recommended level for each stage.
Conversely, the moment you blew far past the recommended level, you could simply bulldoze everything through raw power.
That was exactly what I wanted.
"Oh, right. Come to think of it, in collection games, character count is often strength in its own right."
I needed to understand the system too.
A currency called Shinestone had popped into existence, and from the look of it, that was some manner of premium currency.
How much of it would it take for a single summon?
What about a ten-pull?
Was there a pity system guaranteeing one higher-rarity drop per ten?
Or was it more like an eleventh pull for the price of ten, or a tenth for the price of nine?
Things I'd never once had to think about back when it was just me.
Things that, from a player's perspective, I found myself wanting to nitpick down to the finest detail.
Understanding all of this was essential.
Theoretically it was the protagonists' right and privilege — but knowing it myself would surely earn me some goodwill.
"Regularly sharing information will be necessary, too."
Fortunately, I could pull certain information in real time through the System.
And I had my personally constructed fairy network on top of that.
But the Guardians had only just arrived in Limadimensio.
Of course they were starving for information.
"So in the end, it comes down to what I did earlier, doesn't it."
Hand over information, receive rewards.
That alone would make my life more comfortable.
"All right. Since we're on the subject, let's get started right away."
First, why not dig up every problem festering in the city?
The ones that had been hushed up and swept under the rug because they were too hard to solve.
But with the power of the Guardians behind me, I could clear them all at once!
And since I'd treat every single one as its own stage, their levels would climb at a blazing pace.
...What was the Guardians' level cap, though? If I could find that out too, so much the better...
"Pudding."
"Shall Pudding help?"
"Yes. Bring me every rumor circulating in the city."
"Pudding will be super-duper busy. Gimme three puddings."
"Not all at once. For health reasons, remember? We agreed on two a day."
"Then gimme one at a time, stretched over three days."
"Fine. No — four days. Four total."
"Pudding will finish it super fast!"
The moment Pudding heard the word four puddings, she vanished with a pop.
Fairies did whatever they pleased, but they got the job done properly, so it'd be fine.
For now, I'd rest a little until the rumors came in.
Once they started pouring in, rest would be a luxury.
...
...And that was how I steeled my resolve. Truly.
"There were far more problems than I imagined..."
Limadimensio was stuffed to the brim with problems no one had ever dreamed of.
Beastkin versus androids, beastkin versus demons, elves versus dwarves...
The inter-racial conflicts alone ran into the hundreds, their fault lines tangled into a hopeless knot.
There were the gangs entrenched in every district, and the tensions with outside the city — not just within it — were festering, on the verge of bursting open.
Left alone much longer, the city might well have collapsed outright.
The one silver lining was that I'd identified the problems before they'd fully festered.
There was a whole heaping pile of them, and the Guardians could solve every last one.
"But the problem that needs solving first is obviously this one."
The Celestial–demon conflict.
The Guardians' heroics had patched things up for now, but that was nothing more than a stopgap.
There was a very real chance the leadership of both races was entangled with an outer god.
[The Celestial elder Iakuel has joined hands with Azamakaha. In exchange for offering up everything the Celestials possess, Iakuel wishes to exterminate the entire demon race.]
[Zabrel, son of the demon elder Count Maccapel, takes grave exception to the demons' peace treaty with the Celestials. He believes the demons must stand above the Celestials.]
"...So when's the powder keg going off?"
Going by the story structure, probably around the end of the first chapter.
If the Celestials and demons living in this city went at each other with everything they had, the city's collapse would be a matter of time.
So much for living out my days in peace and leisure.
If I weren't a Guardian, I wouldn't even have known this was brewing.
"The real question is how to solve it..."
At the Guardians' current level, they almost certainly couldn't stand against the leadership of either race.
So for the time being, I'd have to suppress the conflict by any means necessary while raising them up...
Knock knock.
"Hmm? What is it...?"
"You have a visitor."
"...A visitor?"
So that's why Pudding had suddenly flown off to rap on the door. Someone was here.
"Who is it?"
"The Saintess."
"The Saintess..."
Saintess Reina.
The devoted Saintess of the Guardian Order.
Calling it an Order made it sound grand, but it was small.
Still, its influence within the city was considerable.
Nearly every act of charity and civic event in Limadimensio was spearheaded by the Guardian Order.
And now that the Guardians had well and truly appeared, their prestige had apparently climbed even higher.
"I trust you have been keeping well, Professor."
"Welcome. What brings you here...?"
"Nothing of great import. I wished to ask your leave regarding Aufel and Lauel."
"...My leave?"
"The Guardians have expressed a wish to reform the two of them personally."
...Why on earth are you asking me for that?
"As it happens, the only suitable venue for their reformation is a building in your possession, Professor."
"Which building?"
"The port warehouse."
"Ah."
Buildings under my name were scattered all over this city.
They were relics of the era when I agonized over whether I might be the protagonist.
Not that I'd ever put them to use.
Because I wasn't the protagonist.
"Use it as much as you like. Wait — what about the Order's building?"
"It collapsed during the rampage the other day."
"Ah."
"Though even had it stood, I daresay it would have proved insufficient to house the two of them."
Now that she mentioned it, she had a point.
As I'd said before, the Guardian Order was tiny.
Its one and only building, which doubled as headquarters, was a cramped two-story affair.
And if they needed a large space, the two women were likely to rampage quite badly — in which case the old headquarters was out of the question.
"By all means. Anything to do with the Guardians, you may use freely."
"Thank you. By the by — what is it you are working on at the moment...?"
"Sorting through the problems scattered across the city. Until now, no one could so much as touch them, but with the Guardians here, it's a different story."
[Limadimensio is currently a tangled web of competing interests and entrenched influence.]
[As outsiders with no stake in those interests, the Guardians stand a strong chance of resolving matters fairly.]
Well, that didn't take long to surface.
"Solving the problems will burnish the Guardians' reputation and help their power return that much faster."
"I see. As ever, Professor, you have accounted for everything."
Since the topic had come up anyway, I summarized the issues I'd been cataloguing and handed them over to the Saintess.
"Here — pass this along to the Guardians."
"Understood."
That very night, I received a whopping 500,000 gold and 12,000 Shinestones.
Oh, and 250 tier-1 random equipment pieces, 300 tier-2 random equipment pieces, 450 tier-3 random equipment pieces, and 600 tier-5 random equipment pieces, to boot.
...They cleared over a hundred problems in half a day?
How on earth did they manage that?
Don't tell me they just bulldozed straight through, healing back up with every level they gained...?